Picture Fiction Challenge

Let me introduce a brand new idea to you all.

I've been thinking about doing this for a while, and today I will explain this new "challenge" to you, and get a feel for whether or not there is an interest to participate in my "Picture Fiction Challenge".

There is a poll on the right hand side of the screen, in which you can offer your opinions on this whole idea.

There are many forms of writing exercises a guy can do, and for anyone who has a desire to write fiction - writing exercises are a wonderful and fun way of rubbing those creative brain cells. Many writing exercises will simply offer a logline, such as "A former love interest interrupts a wedding ceremony". I enjoy those, and it immediately spurs a lot of creative thoughts on what could happen in the story.

But, I also have a weird fascination with randomness. And, while I initially thought of proramming an application which could generate strange and random loglines for us to work with, that project is somewhat time consuming. I may introduce that in the future.

Instead, I came up with this idea after the popular "Album Cover" meme. I found the Flickr website, and the random function for displaying pictures. That's when it hit me. Another popular writing exercise is to simply write a story based on a photo. I thought - what if we combine a number of pictures and make a fictional story based on those?

I decided to choose random pictures to represent Character, Objective, Setting, Item and Random. All of these things would have to be incorporated into the story you write.

Below you can see what the challenge would look like. If you click on each picture, you will be taken to the Flickr page it was found on. That is to honor the people who took the pictures I so blatantly borrow for this exercise.

Note: This is only an example. I will present the real challenge in a few days... hoping at least one or two of you want to give this a shot. I will guide you through the thought process below each picture, for those of you who are not familiar with the concepts of a writing exercise or of story structure. Or if you simply need a little help to get started.

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I'm looking at this picture, and I see a couple of teenagers. These would be the main characters of the story to write. The boy is looking at the girl, and I get a feeling that he's longing for her - or maybe he's curious about her. The girl, on the other hand, we cannot fully see. She is mysterious, dressed in black and those bright red shoes. There is a sub-plot in that right there.

The way I see it. The boy will be my main character. The girl will be the quiet mysterious girl who has captured his interest. He is curiously drawn to her, but there is something very strange about her.

This picture would represent the direction of the story. This is where the journey is supposed to come to a conclusion. And, what do I see here? I see a rainbow. That means I will send the boy and the girl on a journey to reach that rainbow - that is their objective in the story. A field trip with the class-mates? Is the girl new in town? For what reason are they trying to find the rainbow?

This picture will tell you the setting - the place the story takes place in. We see a beautiful landscape, with a forest and mountains. Aaah - this works well with the rainbow objective. The boy and the girl are on a field trip through the woods and the mountains, and they are trying to reach the (magical?) rainbow.

See how the story has already formed here? The basics are done, all we need to do is write. But, I don't want to settle there. This is too easy. Lets throw in a couple more parameters that need to be taken into consideration.

While looking at this picture there is one item that stands out. It is a clock - a wall clock. Now - why would anyone bring a wall-clock on a field trip to the mountains?

Well, we could either do a little bit of cheating here, which is my initial idea. The clock would represent time - giving us a time-limit on the story. They need to reach the point from which they can see the magical rainbow before it is too late. That gives us some urgency to the story.

But, to honor the item involved, we should probably make someone actually carry a wall clock. We have a strange and mysterious girl... what if she carries the thing in her black bag? She could stop and pull the thing out every now and then to check on the time... maybe this is a magical clock? Maybe it has some significanct connection to the magical rainbow?

The final picture to take into account would be a completely random chosen picture. It could be an image of anything at all. What I got for the example here was this picture of a girl with a camera. Again - this made things pretty easy. The characters in my story are trying to reach that rainbow and they are going to take pictures of it.

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That's pretty much how I propose this challenge to work.

The pictures I would choose will be completely random. I go about it like this - I click the random pics on Flickr, and the first pic I come across which could possibly represent the different categories is used - no selection going on. I have a fascination with all things random, so believe me, I will not be cheating on my selection of pics for this challenge. Sometimes it may be easy - other times it may be really hard to piece them together.

You would, of course, be free to interpret the pictures on your own (without my suggestions). The way I did it here was just to show you the thought process one could use.

The story, itself, can be as long or short as you want to write it. The only thing is that you need to incorporate each element into the story.

For each challenge, I would list all participants right here on this blog - so one could go around and read all stories that came from the same set of pictures, and we could all marvel in how different they would all turn out. And, believe me - we will interpret the pictures very differently indeed.

While this would be a rather time consuming challenge for us all, I do not feel it should be done on a weekly basis. I'm thinking bi-weekly or even monthly. You can tell me what you think in the poll to the right.

Hold it!

I'm looking at this, and I'm thinking many would be intimidated by the whole thing. Thinking this is going to be the longest story ever!

Well... while we already have enough material to write a full length novel based on those pictures... let me just give you an example on how this story could be very short indeed.

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THE RAINBOW GIRL

I will never forget her.

It was during my teenage years that she came into my life, and disappeared from it in just a matter of days. Yet I will never forget about her.

I cannot remember her face. I'm not even sure I ever saw what she really looked like, but what I do remember was a powerful attraction that drew me to her.

We went on a field trip with my class. It was a beautfiful day and it was said that a magical rainbow would appear if we stood at the top of the mountain at the right time of day. I could almost feel her excitement when we set off on that trip. She somehow seemed destined for this trip, and I recall following close in her footsteps as we walked through the damp growth of the vast forest, headed for that mountain.

She would stop every now and then, and look at a strange wall clock she produced from her black bag, which she carried everywhere she went. I had the feeling she knew something about this place that the rest of us didn't know.

I had my camera with me, and I took pictures of her when no one would notice. I don't know why I was so fascinated with this girl, but she was all that was on my mind. And, what happened as we reached to top of the mountain was something I will never forget.

The rainbow was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. She stood in front of me, and I took pictures of her and the rainbow together - both of them so beautiful, mysterious and magical. Then she reached out with her hands. She touched the rainbow. I swear, she touched the rainbow as if it were a solid object. I snapped pictures in fascination.

Then she started to fade away. I couldn't believe my eyes, but she seemed to become one with the rainbow. Her hands at first, then her arm was drawn into the rainbow. The dark black clothes she wore became vibrant with colors - and then she was no longer there.

I ran up to where she stood. I reached out. Tried to touch the rainbow. I wanted to follow her to wherever she went. But, my hands could only grasp for thin air.

"Did you all see that?", I said to the others.

"See what?"

"The girl! She became one with the rainbow!"

"What girl?"

"The new girl. The one in black. She disappeared into the rainbow."

"You're trippin', dude"

I stood there in disbelief. Why didn't they know the girl? Why hadn't they seen what I had seen?

I had my pictures. I would show them.

But, when I had my pictures developed there was no sign of the girl. Was she really ever there at all?